Italy: Summer - July 2003

There were many firsts in this trip. The beginning of a fruitful long-term "relationship".

First time I joined a trip organised by Parlo Tours. I've been a fan eversince and have joined many other subsequent trips by them.

First time I flew Qatar Airways. They were quite unknown then with less frequent connecting flights. The plus point to that was.. we get to tour Doha while waiting for our connecting flight. The airline even provided us with 4* hotel accommodation together with scrumptious buffet breakfast, lunch and dinner :) We don't get to enjoy that now unfortunately. Aaah.. the good old days!

First time I took public transportation alone in a foreign country and got lost in the process. All because I want to buy a Gucci purse at Duomo shopping area ;p Thank God for the beautiful Italian lady who can speak a smithereen of English. She went around to find a map and then showed me how to get back to my hotel using the metro. Now, whenever I got lost.. I will always remember this incident and feel very confident that there are many good people that will show me the right way :)

Now why did I go to Italy in summer? It was so hot. Most especially when we were in Doha. Because there was a promotion of course! And also I was in a "travel mood".. I just want to go somewhere. Regardless of what season.

The best part about going in summer was the day light hours. If I'm not mistaken, it turned dark only at 9 pm. So we got to enjoy the sights longer. Other plus points were good weather (no rain) and good light. So there was no need to use flash to take photos or bring raincoats. We brought umbrella though... Typical Asians relationship with the sun ;p

This trip costs RM4.1k per person (full-board). The tour was from 11-20 July 2003. It was quite long due to the 2 days transit in Doha. The actual days spent in Italy was only 7 days. We covered the following cities: Rome, Pompeii, Sorrento, Florence, Venice, Pisa, Verona, Lake Lugano, Lake Como and Milan. We entered Italy via Rome and departed from Milan.

I've decided not to put up any Doha photos in this article's facebook album. I will cover it in other article with pictures taken in 2008. Doha in 2003 was just like a cowboy town. Doha in 2008 was much more vibrant. I'm just sharing these two photos of Doha. Ripening dates and an Arabian horse. Such a sweet looking horse :)

 

If you're interested, I've posted 219 photos of my trip to Italy in my M Kha Sha facebook account.

 

You can access them at my Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/mkhasha.n.travels/. Go to the photo albums.

 

Njoy!!

Indonesia: Summer - June 2003

This visit (28 June - 1 July 2003) was actually my second trip to Bali. The first trip was too short that I simply didn't get why people love to go to Bali so much. One of my friends is so crazy in love with Bali that she said she is quite happy even if the only holiday she get to go every year is to Bali! I actually signed up for another trip to just to make sure I didn't get it wrong. Was I abnormal?

I went with the girls this time and had a good time at spa and shopping of course! The tour if I'm not mistaken costs me RM1.2k for 4 days 3 nights (full-board). We stayed at Nusa Dua area. Oh by the way, I am not a secretary. I just joined them cause they are such fun-loving-sporting group :)

Frankly, Bali is still not one of my favourite places to go for a holiday but I can understand why a lot of people love it. By the way, there is no actual "summer" in Bali. There are only "rain" or "shine" season ;p I just put "summer" for the sake of title consistency with the other postings :)

If you are interested, you can browse more pictures at my Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/mkhasha.n.travels/. Go to the photo albums.

I must apologise though that there are only a few of them. I just realised that most of my Bali pictures have my face in it. Thus I can find only 17 neutral photos :P

Do enjoy them anyway.

Eastern Europe: Autumn - October 2002

My trip to Eastern Europe (20-26 October 2002) was with a group of ladies (plus a male representative from Malaysia Airlines ;p). The trip was awesome. The shopping was great. The food was delicious. The scenery was breathtaking.. Need I go on? Hehe..

We went to 7 cities - Salzburg, Innsbruck, Munich, Karlovy Vary, Praque, Budapest and Vienna. A total of  4 countries within 7 days - Austria, Germany, Czech Republic, Hungary.. We also passed by Slovakia enroute to one of the cities. No stop over unfortunately..

The full-board tour back then was pretty cheap. I can't remember the exact price.. but if I'm not mistaken it costs around RM3.8k per pax (twin-sharing).

My favourite city for this tour is Praque. Beautiful city with great crystal shopping experience :)

We went during autumn. Coming from a country with only 2 seasons (rain or shine ;p).. needless to say.. we went goo-goo-ga-ga when we first saw the colourful leaves and snow-capped mountain.

Frankly even until now, I'm still having 50:50 thoughts on which season is better for a holiday.. spring or autumn? Both actually have its own charm..

If you're interested, I've posted 136 photos of this tour in my facebook account.

You can access them at my Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/mkhasha.n.travels/. Go to the photo albums.

Njoy!!

A Tribute To My Cameras..

 

 

I think it is good once in awhile to go down the memory lane.. These cameras have done a lot for me. Capturing all the important events of my life. So before I start posting pictures of what they helped me took.. I think it is only a matter of courtesy for me to introduce them.. ;p

 

Oh by the way.. I will only post pictures taken by my digital cameras.... since scanning the photos taken by  my "old-school" cameras and then posting them is deemed to be *too much work* for me ;p

 

It actually surprises me that I had only owned 3 film cameras but within a short span of 9 years I have bought 4 digital cameras... Hemmm .. maybe digital cameras are not made to last?

 

My first camera was a Hanimex.. Not sure whether this brand even existed now haha.. then I moved on to Olympus. Olympus was very good to me. Unfortunately it decided to "die" on my first trip to Australia... a sad day for both of us. I then bought Pentax in Melbourne..

 

Pentax being a non-Malaysian probably can't adapt to a Malaysian lifestyle.. so soon after I came back to my beloved country, it got "sick". I sent it for repair.. it was fine for awhile.. but then it got sick again. By that time digital camera was a new rage in Malaysia... so began my love affairs with digital cameras :)

 

I can't say this many times enough: I think digital camera is one of the best human inventions!

 

My first digi is Sony Cybershot. 2 megapixel. Imagine that! The memory stick was 8MB.. pathetic right? But I loved it so much. The viewing screen at the back was so small.. and yet then I thought it was a godsend!

 

 

I learnt my lesson when my camera died on me in Melbourne... so I will always have a spare digi camera on my travels.. The next two digi are Olympus brand. The latest addition to the fleet is a Samsung. I bought it to commemorate my first time travelling alone.. You will know why when you see the camera.. hehe

 

In the future I will update this article and the pictures whenever I buy a new camera.. I hope it will not be that soon!

 

If you're interested, you can see the pictures of all my cameras at my Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/mkhasha.n.travels/. Go to the photo albums.

Prologue

When I was doing a research on "when is the best time to go to a particular city", I had this wishful thinking - if only I can see pictures of the city during that particular month of the year. As a normal tourist, I have a very limited time. More often than not the organised tour will only last a week. If I travel on my own only then maybe I can prolong it to 3 weeks.

The point I'm trying to make is for a short-term traveller like me, timing of the visits is everything. It will decide whether I will get great experience or just nice ones.

You will think that should be easy right to find the relevant pictures in the internet? Not necessarily so. If you are lucky, you can find them in some travel blogs. Unfortunately the pictures posted are too few. Most of the pictures I'm looking for are actually stored in personal facebook accounts of the travellers.

I know a friend who posted thousands of her beautiful travel photos in her personal facebook account for the viewing pleasure of her friends only. I'm sure my friend is not abnormal, there are millions like her. I'm not abnormal either, I'm sure there are millions like me too who wants to know when is the best time to go by looking at the pictures of fellow travellers.

With that in mind, I've decided to create this blog to share my travel photos with the masses. Hopefully it will help some of you to plan for the perfect timing to take your well deserved holidays. They will be stored in my facebook account. Search for M Kha Sha. I will tag the albums as "public" so feel free to browse through. I will also try to give details - date, place - as much as I can remember them. Some of the pictures are close to 10 years old!

Another reason why I created this blog is so that I can monitor how many countries that I've set foot on and when. Sometimes details can get hazy after a while.

Since the pictures posted will be only those post "digital camera" era, there will be a few cities that I've been to which will not be covered. So I'm listing them now just for my own record: Lake Toba, Hong Kong, Taipei, Beijing, Tehran, Melbourne, Seoul. I don't normally bring my camera during business trips so cities like Jakarta, Manila, Phnom Penh and Bangkok will not be covered either.

This will be an on going project. I will only update this blog whenever I have new travel photos. As such, do subscribe to my M Kha Sha facebook account if you wish to be notified of any new updates.

Njoy!!